


It Was For You

by hazelhollyhock



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Cemetery, Death, F/M, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, victorian london
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10040252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelhollyhock/pseuds/hazelhollyhock
Summary: Originally this was a flashback scene intended for Across the Irish Sea. In an early chapter, I write that he lost his parents to Scarlet Fever while he was overseas. After Jedediah Shine returns to London from his ten-year post in Hong Kong he meets with Josephine, now married to another, at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. What she shows him in the cemetery leaves him speechless. Note: Josephine believed him dead at the time his parents pass away and Jedediah knows this. I want Josephine to be the compassionate of the two and what she reveals to him, I hope, illustrates that 1. She was mourning him and 2. she felt it was the right thing to do and 3. it was what she thinks he would have wanted.





	

Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park - Bow, London - Soon after Jedediah Shine returns from Hong Kong- 188?

* * *

 

“Hello Jedediah,” her voice sounded as tight as a piano wire.

“How do, Jo. Looking well, as usual.” All charm he was.

“I do hope it wasn’t out of your way to meet me here. I thought it best to show you myself.”

“No trouble at all. Please. Lead the way.”

They walked slowly down a path through a line of trees. Not quite touching, but occasionally brushing up against each other.

“I, erm, I felt it best to give them a private gravesite, rather than a public one. There is a dreadful rumor that people are literally being buried on top of one another- strangers like. Can you imagine? And the bloody resurrectionists are still an issue.”

She felt his eyes upon her and flushed in reaction. He was slightly behind her now on the narrowing path. He noticed the splotches on her neck, the visual signs of her nerves getting the best of her that he remembered well. His eyes studied the navy blue buttons that ran down the back of her lace high collar. Rogue brown curls caressed that collar.

What would she do if he reached out and ran his fingers down that collar? Slowly. Gently.

“Just here now,” she turned them down a side path, through a lush copse of trees.

The gravestones were no more than 50-years old here, but the shade and moisture had given them a patinaed and mossy look. From here, somewhere in the middle of the park, he could barely hear the ruckus of the markets surrounding them. Birds sang sweetly in the tree limbs above them.

She had not been watching where she was going, distracted by something. A tree root seemed to come out of nowhere and she tripped over it. 

Those splotches again, he thought with a smirk.

Instinctively, he placed a hand on the small of her back to assist her around a couple of weather beaten spots along the way.

This was a terrible idea, she thought. 

“Here we are,” Josephine announced on a breath.

Jedediah stopped at her cue and gazed upon the twin gravesites of Ada and Malachi Ó Seighin.

She watched as his face turned to stone.

"I didn’t want to do anything too garish, but not too simple neither. So, I chose urn emblems atop each.

"Oh, no this won’t do a’tall,” she said abruptly and promptly busied herself with brushing wet leaves away with gloved hands, her purple skirt peaking out from the bottom of her long double-breasted greatcoat.

She felt his eyes on her again.

Standing straight up and turning to him, she met his gaze for a long solemn moment.  His brow became very serious. He seemed to search for words, but finding none, simply stared at her.

“Are you displeased, Jedediah?" Her face displayed a genuine show of worry.

Ignoring her question, "How did you do all of this?”

“I had the financial means after I sold the brothel. Your mother did not approve of me, I know,” she smiled in spite of it. “Who would have, honestly. But they were still very kind to me. Your mother met me for tea a few times while you were away. We discussed domestic topics that would interest no man, but she often spoke of you. I think we... she...felt close to you when we did.

“After their passing, I arranged to have them prepared, proper-like, and then buried here.

"They were very proud of you, Jedediah," she added.

Jedediah swallowed hard and ran his palm over his mustache and mouth for a second. He had to turn away from her.

Wishing to fill the silence, she added, “a priest was able to administer last rites in time, so I understand." She hoped that would ease him.

“I was able to retain several things from your parents’ home: Ada’s hand-crocheted lace antimacassars and doilies and the like. There was an old chessboard that your father had. I have that as well. Some brass candlesticks. We can arrange to deliver those items to you on another day since I know you’re very busy."

Still no response.

“Your mother was buried with her bible and a proper white dress.

“Likewise, your father was properly suited.

“Both wore their wedding bands when they were interred. As you can imagine, there were many friends of theirs who were present at the joint burial."

He turned and watched her pour over her mental ledger, mindless of his astonishment.

In two great strides he came to be before her, gazing down at her. She had stopped talking, but the lines across her forehead told him her mind was nothing close to being at rest. 

He placed her hand in his, which stopped her thought stream, and with great tenderness cupped the top of it with the other.

With a serious look on his brow and a timbre to his voice that he didn’t have before, he said her name and stopped. Then he opened his mouth to speak again, but stopped once again.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered.

He smiled sadly in response.

“I will give you a few moments alone,” she said. Then, after gently extricating her hand from his, she walked down the path a short distance, glad to have a moment to catch her breath.

Jedediah stood still for a moment before approaching the gravestones. He placed a hand to his mouth and transferred an imaginary kiss to his mother’s name, feeling along the letters of it as though it were braille. After,  he moved to his father’s gravestone and placed his hand on it. 

Some moments later, Josephine received a silent cue from him and returned.

She felt his hand reach for hers again. She watched him, her breath shallow, as he brought it to his lips and held it there, closing his eyes as if in prayer.

“This may be the first time in all my years that I am dreadful short of words, Jo,” he laughed nervously. "Poets may know what to say in this moment. But I, well,..."

He paused and then did found something to say. Something he instantly regretted.

"May I... compensate you for any of this?”

“Absolutely not,” she shook her head. She would not hear of it.

His red-rimmed eyes were all a question.  “Why did you do this, Jo? All of this?”

He hoped for a specific answer. He wanted to hear her say it.

Wearing a slightly confused expression she answered as if there was only one possible reason in the world to do anything. “I did it for you, Jedediah.”


End file.
